I bought the lite version of Helicon Focus after trying it for several weeks. I'm using Helicon Remote to creating the stacks with a Nikon D810 and either a 90mm macro, a 70-200 with extension tube, or a fairly close focusing 28-300... Creatingthe stacks is working pretty well as long as I can keep the subject(s) still. My subjects are typically flowers with a lot of fine fuzz, hairs, and other fiddly bits, so I consider them NOT to be a simple surface. I see a lot of fine lines and such.

In Helicon Focus I've read the help and played with the different methods for assembling the stack, and I don't have a good feel for getting optimal output. With method B I ran a stack through HF with radius 2,4,8,16,32, and smoothing of 2, 4, and 8. Then looked at the output. Even at 100% on the D810 images, I'm not seeing the drastic changes I'm expecting. I'm not getting big halos OR fine hairs that disappear.

I figure I'm missing something. I"ve settled on using a radius of 2 or 3 and a smoothing of 4, but after looking at the output, I usually shrug and go to Method C.

Can you experts elaborate on your workflow and what kind of parameters you find best for subjects like wildflowers?

You are welcome to upload your stack to our server for closer examination.

Some scenes are very "robust" and can tolerate wide range of parameters without degradation. This could be smooth surface with strong texture, for example. I will be able to tell more after seeing your images.

I was actually hoping for a general set of guidelines from people that are doing macro, that go beyond the help file, but I can upload the stack. Is there something that tells me where the server is and how to upload to it?